Pretoria – The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Fatima Chohan, says about 60% of the 6 900 Angolan refugees that are in the country have approached the department to regularise their asylum status.
Speaking to journalists at her department’s headquarters in Acardia on Thursday, Chohan said of those that approached their desks, 56% applied to resume their Angolan citizenship, while a smaller unspecified number have asked for their refugee status to be protected.
This comes after the department – in line with a recommendation made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) after Angola’s civil war ended in 2002 – gave Angolan refugees a 14-week period to review their refugee status at help desks set up around the country.
The open window ends on Saturday, 31 August, at 3pm.
“We are pleased with the positive turn-out and wish to reiterate that the one stop service points will continue to operate until Saturday…
“We are encouraged that over 56% of those that visited the one stop centres have applied to resume their Angolan citizenship, through applying for Angolan passports,” she said.
Many Angolan nationals took refuge in South Africa and other countries when a civil war broke after Angola gained its independence from Portugal in 1975.
After the war ended in 2002, the UNHCR announced to its member states in 2009 that following the end of the Angola’s civil war, and with that country’s economy showing signs of growth with hints of political stability, that the refugee status of Angolans be withdrawn.
The commissioner called on member states to adopt a uniform approach and schedule as far as the cessation of the refugee dispensation was concerned, with South Africa eventually announcing a window of opportunity in May.
Some 16% were immediately processed at one-stop centres, and they asked for temporary residential permits in terms of the South African Immigration Act. This is the group that will remain in the country because of work, business or study commitments, and would like to stay in the country by applying for a work or study permit.
“A small number of affected persons [seven] has applied for continued protection and their cases will be evaluated by the Standing Committee on Refugee Status [on a case-by-case basis].
“Approximately 23% of refugees who visited the centres have opted for various alternative options available to them,” Chohan said.
She said those who do not make an effort to regularise their refugee status would be given a notice to vacate the country, before being deported.
Jacky Mackay, the deputy director general for the department, said those who wished to remain in the country as refugees “indefinitely” would have to give compelling reasons why they cannot return to their country of origin.
Of the 6 900 refugees that are on the Home Affairs system, 1 700 of them are dependants. Chohan said, meanwhile, that while they may be dependants of refugees who were born in South Africa and may feel that their entire lives are in this country, the law stipulated that children of refugees will, in that event, take up their parents’ refugee status.
She said those who still wanted to take advantage of the open window could do so at service desks at the Pretoria Showgrounds on Souter Street; The Nashua Building in North End in Port Elizabeth; The Warehouse Building on 5 Heerenchraght Street in Cape Town and on 132 Moore Street in Durban. – SAnews.gov.za
